1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking oven, particularly a microwave oven, comprising means for detecting food data and for adjusting food heating and/or cooking process accordingly.
2. Description of the Related Art
This kind of ovens is known from EP-A-550124 and EP-A-1193584. According to EP-A-550124, a microwave oven is provided with a bar code reader for inputting food data printed on a packaged food product. Once the user has put the food near the code reader, he can memorize the food data (for instance a cooking recipe associated with the food) in the control process unit of the oven and he can also modify it by using a keyboard or the like. Independently on the presence or absence of stored recipes in the control process unit of the oven, the user has to select certain parameters of the oven (power, time, function, sequences etc.) or to select a certain recipe and then he has to press the start button. Therefore this known oven needs a quite high degree of interaction between the oven and the user, with several sequential steps (scanning of bar code on the food package or on a book reporting the codes, selecting a stored recipe, pressing the start button) which can be too complex, particularly for children or for elderly people.
The same problem does exist for the microwave oven shown in EP-A-1193584 where the food data are automatically transmitted to the central process unit of the oven by using a remotely accessible data media associated with the food. Also in this case the user has to select through the user interface the appropriate recipe automatically stored, to modify such recipe according to his needs or to start a normal heating/cooking process (by-passing the stored recipes) by pressing a start button.